


Of rookie mistakes and broken ribs

by CamilleDuDemon



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Caring Eskel, Hurt Lambert (The Witcher), Lambert is reckless, Lambert whump, M/M, Minor Injuries, Protective Eskel, Soft Lambert (The Witcher), Vulnerable Lambert, Winter At Kaer Morhen, Wolf Bros, domestic undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28935696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamilleDuDemon/pseuds/CamilleDuDemon
Summary: “Come on, we’re almost there. See? That’s the entrance. Just -- hold on, all right?”Lambert nods with a small huff. Bad idea: huffing sends a jolt of searing pain through his already hurting chest, knocking his breath off and making him see stars for a while.“‘M not dying, Eskel”, he objects, though gasping for air. Eskel shoots him a disapproving glance and shakes his head, probably amazed about how reckless he is, although being long past the appropriate age for such bullshit like activating a goddamn explosive trap while trying to scratch some silver from a rock. Now Lambert would like to chuckle again, but he’s afraid his knees will buckle for the pain if he just tried.“Shut up, please, before I finish the job instead of taking care of your sorry ass.”
Relationships: Eskel/Lambert (The Witcher)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53





	Of rookie mistakes and broken ribs

**Author's Note:**

> Handle with care: this thingie is both cheesy and extremely self-indulgent!

“Why must you always touch everything?”

Eskel’s voice comes from a strange place that’s simultaneously too close and too far to reach. Lambert squints in the dusty fog, coughing up dark shards of crushed rock mixed with thick saliva and blood from his scorched throat. At a first, tentative prodding, his teeth seem to be just fine, maybe chipped on the surface but functional and present nonetheless.

_ Good. Abso-fucking-lutely good. _

“What the fuck was that?”, he groans, his head pounding as if someone is hammering an entire set of nails in the back of his skull. Slowly and carefully he tries to prop himself up in a sitting position, but a sudden wave of nausea makes his stomach churn and all of his sore muscles spasm painfully under is bruised skin.

“An explosive trap, what do you think? Fuck, let me help you.”

Now, Lambert isn’t always prone at being helped but everything hurts and he’s feeling so dizzy that he firmly believes he would fall face-first in the rubble if he couldn’t lean on Eskel for support.

“An explosive trap? In a dwarven mine?”

Yeah, it would sound extremely funny if he wasn’t feeling like absolute shit while staggering on his feet trying not to puke all over Eskel’s neat and proper armor, only marginally scratched up by the sharp debris. Lambert hears him snort humorlessly while pulling his arm over his shoulders to support him and drag him away from the dust and the rubble.

“It wasn’t meant for the mine. This place has been used as a lab of some sorts when the School of the Wolf was first established, hence the traps. You should know that, you ass. Why don’t you ever listen, mh?”

Lambert wouldn’t like to laugh at Eskel’s face, but a chuckle escapes his dry lips nonetheless. He isn’t exactly the maudlin type, but he takes a certain pleasure in the way Eskel cares about him - so deeply, sometimes even too deeply for his taste - because, fuck, his life has been a goddamn tragedy all along, he deserves someone to look out for him, doesn’t he? And his chuckle has nothing to do with mockery. It’s just -- he isn’t used at being cared for. Witchers, after all, live solitary lives, and he - unlike Geralt or Eskel - isn’t the friendliest of the lot. 

“You sound like a mother hen, you know that?”

“Yes, you never fail to remind me”, he courtly replies, waving his hand in the dusty air with a wince. “Save your breath, you dickhead. The explosion has hit you square in the chest, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d have broken a couple of ribs.”

Again, Lambert chuckles, but he doesn’t protest when Eskel starts walking, dragging him along with a slight grunt. The walk back to their horses is no picnic in the park; Eskel is probably right about his ribs, because breathing in hurts, and breathing out hurts twice as much. Though he really wouldn’t like to show how sore he feels, he can’t help but moan in pain a couple of times, for how mortifying it sounds.

_ A grown-ass witcher moaning in pain. That’s no material for one of Jaskier’s ballads for sure. _

“Come on, we’re almost there. See? That’s the entrance. Just -- hold on, all right?”

Lambert nods with a small huff. Bad idea: huffing sends a jolt of searing pain through his already hurting chest, knocking his breath off and making him see stars for a while.

“‘M not dying, Eskel”, he objects, though gasping for air. Eskel shoots him a disapproving glance and shakes his head, probably amazed about how reckless he is, although being long past the appropriate age for such bullshit like  _ activating a goddamn explosive trap while trying to scratch some silver from a rock.  _ Now Lambert would like to chuckle again, but he’s afraid his knees will buckle for the pain if he just tried. 

“Shut up, please, before I finish the job instead of taking care of your sorry ass.”

Lambert shuts up, then. Not because he’s afraid that Eskel would  _ really  _ finish the job, of course, Eskel wouldn’t be such a heartless bastard. When it comes to threats against him, he’s all bark, he’s always been all bark, even when Lambert was just a brat who couldn’t behave and yelled at every instructor things that would have made a sailor blush. He would have deserved being chopped up into tiny little pieces and fed to the pigs, back then, he has become mature enough to admit that.

_ Still. _

“Hey, Lambert, look at me.”

Lambert blinks, groggy and confused. The grayish, sickly pale light of the cloudy late afternoon is so bright he needs to shield his eyes for a moment. He must have blackened out sometime during the walk back to the entrance of the caves, or so he thinks. Eskel’s ungloved hand is so utterly soft and warm against his dirty, cold face that he’d very much like to take another nap while he’s at it.

“What.”

He rolls his eyes involuntarily when Eskel carefully examines his pupils with a frown.

“You hit your head pretty bad”, he sentences. “You can’t ride like this.”

“Ride? Back to the keep? Now?”, Lambert stutters, feeling too weary to mount on his horse for a fucking hours long trek through the forest. The wind blowing from the mountains is cold, and his nose is freezing off so, screw his own dignity, he sticks it in the crook of Eskel’s neck and huffs - for how much it hurts - as soon as his cold skin meets his pleasant heat.

“No, not to the keep. It’s too far from here with you in this state. But there’s a place -- at least there was, back then, I mean...it would be a temporary shelter. It’s getting late and it might start snowing soon. Do you feel like riding with me? We can tie your horse to mine and take the ride slowly”, he suggests, visibly short on better options. Even with his head fucked up by the blow, Lambert knows that it would be the safest choice, so he agrees with a soft grunt and he lets Eskel set him up the saddle in a position that would, hopefully, minimize the risk of hurting his ribs further. 

As they ride deeper and deeper in the dense forest surrounding the old mines, Lambert curses at the icy breeze whipping at his face, making the many nasty cuts on his cheeks burn and prick.

“Fuck, ‘s cold…”

He hears Eskel’s jaw clench as he spurs his horse a little faster. Surely he’s fussing too much for a bunch of minor injuries, but deep down Lambert - as much as he’d cut his dick off with a hunting knife before admitting such a thing out loud - feels grateful for that.

Daylight is fading fast - it’s mid-winter after all - and by the time they reach a small wooden hut right behind the hills the sky is already turning dark, the stars hiding behind a heavy curtain of swollen clouds.

“This the place?”, he inquires, quirking his brow at the sight of a rather desolate place that looks as abandoned and decaying as every other building in the valley.

Eskel is quick to dismount and help him off the horse, tying both of the animals to a pole and retrieving his saddlebags while Lambert, hit by another surge of overwhelming nausea, spills the meager content of his stomach right by the hoofs of his own mare, one arm still thrown around Eskel’s broad shoulders as he retches and curses and he retches again. When he’s done, he feels like every single one of his fucking ribs is, at least, bruised, if not snapped in a half. Breathing is so hard he even wheezes miserably with each intake of frozen air. Even the soothing circles Eskel is rubbing in his back are of no help at all, no matter how nice being coddled like this feels.

Not to mention the godsdamn cold.

Lambert feels his teeth clatter, but he barely registers the ugly sound over the jolts of white-hot pain in his torso. Inside the hut, the temperature is hardly higher than outside, but he spots a small hearth filled with age-old ash and coals and relief instantly floods his twisted guts, melting the hard knots in his muscles.

He doesn’t know how, and frankly he doesn’t care about knowing either, but he finds himself propped up against the cold wooden wall, with Eskel wrapping his shuddering form in a blanket that smells like mold and rot, and pressing an uncorked vial to his lips. Lambert downs the content of the vial recognizing its unmistakable smell of celandine and crushed drowner brain.

_ Swallow. _

The elixir will mend his battered body soon enough to be ready to ride to the keep before sunrise, but it doesn’t help with the pain. Nor with the freezing temperatures gnawing at his numb hands and face, the cold so piecing it literally makes his bones protest loudly.

“Can you start a fire?”, he stutters, and Eskel nods, showing him a couple of damp logs he has retrieved from...somewhere. Lambert takes his time observing the sparse furniture of the one-room hut. Looks cozy, though desolate. The dust that has settled on every piece of furniture - which isn’t much actually, a bare trunk, a small table with two chairs, a wooden countertop and a cot - it’s a clear indication that no one has been there for an extensive amount of time in a while. Is it Eskel’s little secret? He considers asking, but the searing pain in his ribs puts him off.

The fire comes to life with a very powerful blast of Igni and even Eskel, whose fucked up body temperature alone is enough to keep them both comfortable in his room at night without having to light the fireplace, warms his hands up by the bright flames.

“Feeling better?”, he asks, his voice a soft hum.

Lambert winces.

“Still hurting like hell.”

“All right, let’s see what we can do about that. First, you need to get warm.”

He doesn’t object when Eskel pulls him on his feet with a delicate move and helps him find a comfortable spot as close to the fire as he can get. If the Trials hadn’t devoid him of that ability, he would undoubtedly blush from head to toe when Eskel gets rid of his scorched, ruined gloves and starts rubbing at his cold fingers to reactivate his circulation.

“Your gloves are doomed, I’m afraid”, he sighs after a while. “Got a spare pair at the keep?”

Lambert nods reflexively, even if he’s not sure. He hasn’t checked his trunk recently and he, unlike Geralt, is no hoarder, he doesn’t have three or four versions of the same fucking thing just for the sake of stockpiling.

“I think so. I'm not sure”, he ends up admitting, Eskel’s gentle fingers massaging some color back in his livid, aching hands. Carefully, he tests the dexterity and flexibility in each one of Lambert’s fingers, letting out a satisfied noise as soon as he realizes that nothing is broken.

“Do you think you can handle having your armor removed? I need to check your ribs, see if Swallow is working.”

Lambert can’t say for sure. He isn’t exactly happy of being undressed in a ramshackle hut in the middle of the Kaedweni winter, but he knows better than to defy both Eskel’s goatlike stubbornness and his urge of making himself useful. So he just nods away and lets Eskel unbuckle his damp leather jacket and toss it in a corner along with his dirty undershirt. He’s unable to suppress a shiver when the vicious breeze slipping in through the cracks hits his bare, bruised skin. He earns a guilty, sheepish glance from Eskel and his battered chest tightens at the sight.

“So?”, he asks, only to fill in the uneasy silence in which they’ve fallen. Crouched at his side with a stern look on his face, Eskel could easily pass for an Oxenfurt medic or a very skilled village healer. The single, almost invisible wrinkle in his brow deepens.

“It would be better if I wrapped your chest up, to keep the ribs in place until the bone has knitted back sufficiently. May I?”

“You’re the expert...”

Eskel snorts.

“Hardly. But at least I seek proper attention when I get injured on a contract,  _ unlike some.” _

The accusatory tone in his voice is barely fair, but Lambert takes his brotherly rebuff with the resignation of a martyr. It would be useless to point out that he’s perfectly able to take care of himself, so he just sags with the aborted intention of a sigh and lets Eskel play the healer with his numbing poultices and makeshift bandages, because no matter how hard he tries to deny it, he likes the way Eskel has looked after him since he was a little munchkin who didn’t know shit about affection.

He has always been so gentle. So caring. The way his hands brush against his goosebumped skin just slightly, indulging, as he smears a foul smelling poultice on his sore ribs and wraps some bandages around his chest is -- well, Lambert couldn’t think of any better term than  _ moving. _

“You know you don't have to, right?”, he blurts out, his tongue - as always - faster than his brain. Eskel shoots him one of his famous  _ I-am-your-older-brother-so-I-know-better  _ looks before giving one last tug to the dressing, fixing it properly like a real healer would.

“I know. But I want to.”

Lambert lets out a quiet chuckle, to which his ribs respond with a painful protest. The poultice, however, works wonders and the pain subsides almost instantly, although the smell makes Lambert’s nose itch.

“You worry too much.”

“And you don’t worry enough. Let me take a look at the cuts on your face.”

It shouldn’t feel so good to have someone’s hands probing at your face, Lambert is very aware of that, but he can’t help but melt into Eskel’s soothing heat, leaning into his touch like a housecat desperate for being pampered and petted, even managing to close his eyes and exhale a satisfied breath against Eskel’s nose.

Probably Eskel deems the many little lacerations to be unworthy of any medical attention, because he soon drops their foreheads together and places a featherlight, fleeting kiss at the corner of his mouth, exhaling a heavy, shuddering breath that mirrors Lambert’s.

“You could have hurt yourself pretty bad in that cave”, he whispers on his lips, his hand gently carding through the tangled mass of his hair, occasionally plucking out gravel and shards of deflagrated rock that he promptly tosses on the dusty floor.

Lambert snorts, kicking him gently with the tip of his boot.

“See? You worry too much.”

Eskel hums, nodding his head dismissively.

“Promise me you’ll be more careful from now on, Lambert.”

Lambert would gladly come up with a snarky remark of some sorts, something bitter and sarcastic and so fucking like himself, but for once in his life he feels at loss of words -- especially the foulest ones. He can’t explain the sudden lump in his throat, but the way his heart skips a beat as Eskel  _ pleads  _ him to pay more attention is something that - and he’s sure of it - will keep him warm for the many lonely nights to come whilst on the Path.

***

“Booze. Why, pray tell, did you keep this little secret from me, uh?”

Lambert slumps at Eskel’s side next to the fire, the soup of wild herbs and tubers simmering slowly, its nice scent drowning out the stench of wet wood and dust permeating the air.

“I haven’t kept anything. I just -- I haven’t sorted out my saddlebags properly. That booze must be a relic”, he gently warns, but Lambert uncorks the bottle anyway and takes a huge sip. Peppermint cordial? Vodka? He’s not sure. He enjoys the way the liquid burns down his throat, though, warming his empty stomach up, easing the pain. 

Breathing feels easier now, a clear sign that the elixir is effectively working, so he doesn’t refrain from snuggling closer against Eskel, passing him the bottle when he outstretches his hand eloquently.

“You think it’s edible?” he teases, eyeing at the simmering soup with a quirked brow.

Eskel snorts, taking a long sip of  _ whatever the fucking thing it might be _ , and he waves his hand in the chilly air noncommittally.

“Should be. The herbs were nicely preserved, and I picked up the tubers myself. I’ve eaten worse, honestly.”

“Ah, you talk. Have you ever had necrophage steak for dinner? A rare delicacy from the Path.”

He snatches the bottle from Eskel’s hand, then, earning an amused glance and a huff.

“Fuck, you really need to be careful out there.”

Again, Lambert can’t explain the pleasant heat pooling in his guts whenever Eskel acts so caringly towards him, as if he  _ really  _ gave a damn about his well-being.

Perhaps it’s better not to know for sure. Perhaps it’s better not to look for a logical, reasonable explanation for all of the things he  _ feels  _ when he’s with Eskel, when he thinks about him during the tedious months spent apart, when it’s Eskel’s face that pops up in his mind whenever something goes awry during a contract and he ends up thinking  _ that’s it, I’m done, it’s time.  _ It must have something to do with the fact that they have been fucking every winter for the past decade or so, but --  _ better not to dwell on that. _

A small, trembling sigh escapes his lips.

The bottle is emptying fast and his head is starting to feel pleasingly light.

If he wasn’t so irremediably himself, he would say something meaningful to Eskel, something deep, something that would make his knees go soft and mushy and his heart melt in his chest like snow on a sunny spring morning.

Unfortunately, nothing comes to his mind, so he just waves the cheesy, silly thought away and watches as the soup bubbles and boils over the fire, dozing off against Eskel’s side with the dusty bottle of vodka still hanging loosely from his fingers.

***

“Take the bed. I’ll have the floor for tonight.”

Lambert snorts, shaking his head vehemently.  _ Saint Eskel of Kaer Morhen, always doing the right thing in spite of himself. _

“What about we both take the bed and you cut with the bullshit? I’m good. I’m healed. See?”, he says, turning his torso to show him that the bad boo-boo in his ribcage is gone. The upper segment of his spine pops delightfully, eliciting a small sound from the back of his throat. Predictably enough, Eskel casts him a dirty glance.

“You’re a reckless asshole.”

Now that he can do it without howling in pain, Lambert chuckles, tugging at Eskel’s sleeve until he’s sure that his uptight brother will soon loosen up enough to cuddle with him in the small bed. 

“And you’re a heartless bastard who would make me risk hypothermia only because you think that the bed is too small and you will crush my injured side if we are to sleep together.”

It doesn’t take too much convincing, since Lambert knows where to strike true. Using Eskel’s sense of responsibility as a leverage is always enough to do the trick. This time is no exception and, as soon as he has crawled into bed, Lambert feels enveloped in Eskel’s warmth, his gentle arms holding him as he buries his face in the crook of his neck.

Eskel smells wonderful, how can he always smell so wonderful?

“Don’t get your hopes too high. I won’t lay a finger on an injured man, Lambert.”

Lambert frowns, then he smells it.  _ Arousal.  _ And it definitely doesn’t come from Saintly, Good, Pure Eskel, who has multiple times fucked him senseless on a godsdamned wooden table but would never dare to fuck him on a narrow bed only because he got injured while patrolling for infestations at the old mines.

Lambert should be offended by Eskel’s morals, but he wisely chooses to let that go for once. They’ll have plenty of occasions to fuck, when Eskel will finally deem him  _ healed enough. _ For the moment, he can just revel in the peace and comfort provided by Eskel’s proximity, blatantly ignoring the  _ hunger  _ that his scent has stirred in him. Ain’t the first time and surely it won’t be the last that he bites his own arousal back, he can do with just some  _ cuddling. _

Besides.

There’s a matter that needs urgent addressing, and Lamberts knows he has postponed it too much. 

“As to what you did for me today -- thank you, Eskel”, he mutters, his face burying deeper into his neck, into his overgrown disheveled hair.

“Why, what did I do?”

The surprise in his voice is genuine.  _ Saint, humble Eskel. _

“You took care of me, don’t act as if you did nothing.”

Eskel snorts quietly.

“Well, somebody’s got to…”, he mumbles, and even though exhaustion can be easily detected in the pleasant baritone of his voice, his statement manages to sound so easy, so factual -- as if it was something Lambert must never question or doubt. As if taking care of him came to Eskel as natural as breathing or walking.

When Lambert is finally ready to let the implications of such a statement set into him, it feels almost  _ groundbreaking,  _ and again he feels at a complete loss of words, so he places a chaste kiss against the thick cobweb of scars adorning Eskel’s rough, fragrant skin and doesn’t say anything in return.

But Eskel is right, though --  _ somebody has to look out for him, at least once in a while. _

He can let it happen.

He  _ will  _ let it happen.

And, honestly, Lambert is sure he could have never asked for anyone better to take such a burden upon their shoulders.

_ Eskel’s back is certainly broad and strong for carrying both of them, every now and then. _

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  



End file.
